The artworks, (30 mixed media pieces) that I eventually produced towards uses in the Hesitation Marks releases, evolved out of lengthy exchanges between myself and Trent and in response to the conceptual ideas that thread through the tracks and to the sonic territory that the album explores. I’ve tried to lock into the album’s prevailing mood and echo the album’s essence. The ideas are not communicated in a literal or easily digested form, as this would be boring for me and would insult the intelligence of a potential audience. I’ve tried to make works that obliquely allude to the essence of the subject matter, to its emotional core.
As with my self-initiated works – the paintings, assemblages, collages and multimedia installations – personal ideas and obsessions seep into these works. The organic, the natural, prevailing over or feeding into the industrial, the man made, is a common theme in my work generally and in this instance was particularly apt for the art required.
The works explore ideas of catharsis, of being into dissolution into being, both on a personal and sociological level. They allude to ideas about chaos and order. They deal with ways of suggesting presence in absence. They are a cross between the forensic and a pathology of the personal in which only fragments remain, in which minimal clues can suggest events that may have occurred. They attempt to harness the chaos of a situation, of now, of the personal trauma, of the human condition, into a form that is coherent, a form that accommodates the mess without disguising it as something else. It attempts to capture the essence of these ideas by implication and exclusion. Beneath the form lies the uncertainty and ceaseless flux of the mess, of the chaos.
An amalgam of the contextually-anchored and the process-driven, they are hopefully powerful, arresting, seductive, suggestive and resonant. I hope that they will invite multiple readings.

Our new full-length album, Hesitation Marks, will be released September 3rd on Columbia Records. The first single, “Came Back Haunted,” is out now, and you can listen to it above or on Soundcloud. You can also download the song right now by pre-ordering the album from us or on iTunes.

We’ve also announced our new tour, Tension 2013, coming this fall to North America. Picking up where Lights in the Sky left off, this is the full-on NIN live experience realized as we never could before. View tour dates and on-sale dates on our tour page. As usual, we have a nin.com presale designed to get the best tickets in the hands of real fans at reasonable prices – check here for full presale details and times.

From TR: “I’ve been less than honest about what I’ve really been up to lately. For the last year I’ve been secretly working non-stop with Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder on a new, full-length Nine Inch Nails record, which I am happy to say is finished and frankly fucking great. This is the real impetus and motivation behind the decision to assemble a new band and tour again. My forays into film, HTDA and other projects really stimulated me creatively and I decided to focus that energy on taking Nine Inch Nails to a new place. Here we go!”

Obviously, nin.com has been in dire need of an update for quite a while now. We’ve been busy working on all sorts of other things, as you know, but now with a NIN tour happening, we’ve talked a lot about how to keep nin.com modern, have the best features for our needs and yours, and not have to shoulder the burden of maintenance entirely on our own. We’ve decided to migrate from our current custom site to Modlife’s platform. It’s robust, customizable, has a ton of up-to-date features, and most importantly, provides us with an actual team of people who are working to keep the site evolving.

This migration is going to change nin.com and its features quite a bit, and we’re only just beginning to lay out the roadmap. It’s going to be a gradual process, but the first step will be tomorrow (Monday), when we will close off new nin.com user registrations. This is necessary to migrate all the user data over to Modlife’s platform, so your username/password will not change. The next step will be revamping the homepage in a way that hides all the old site content from view while we work on renovating it. However, during the transition, all the old content, like the forums, will still be accessible via direct URL – they just won’t be linked from the main nin.com anymore, and they will use the old, frozen user database. You can think of it as a sad graveyard, or as a secret private club, depending on how positive you are.

Change is scary, I know, but it’s long overdue, and all of this should, in the long term, result in a much better and more lively nin.com experience. We’re excited about the future here and the opportunity to finally be able to move forward with the site.
So, you have questions. “What happens to remix? What happens to images/video? What happens to the forum archives? What about the app?” The answer: We don’t know yet. It will be a gradual and modular process, and any important archival stuff that we aren’t able to migrate over to Modlife’s platform will be preserved in some fashion.

Now, for conversation: Do we make an effort to import all of the current forum structure and archived posts to the new platform, or do we start clean? Will there be mass panic if you all lose your old posts? Is this the worst thing ever and do you hate us now?

I am proud to announce that the tour lineup now includes the incredible Robin Finck. The addition of Robin to the mix of players I’ve assembled makes this band incredibly powerful and versatile. We are deep in the rehearsal process and it feels exciting and great to be back at this. Lots of information, surprises and sweat headed your way. Stay tuned!